


Give Me Something to Believe in...

by AllHallowsEve



Series: Wincest Colored Glasses [12]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Episode: s01e12 Faith, Fear, Fear of Death, Impending Death, John Winchester's A+ Parenting, Love, M/M, Pre-Slash, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-07
Updated: 2018-06-07
Packaged: 2019-05-19 10:49:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14872343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllHallowsEve/pseuds/AllHallowsEve
Summary: Dean almost dies, and is given only a few weeks to live, in the aftermath of a bad hunt.  Sam is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure Dean survives.  Even if that means taking him to a faith healer.  Of course things go awry.Episode 12 as seen through Wincest colored glasses.





	Give Me Something to Believe in...

**Author's Note:**

> This one was hard. The heaviness of the episode matches the weight of the guilt carried by both brothers because of their love for each other.
> 
> As always this was unbeta'd so please let me know if there are any errors.

Sam came running back down the stairs into the basement of the old house, after taking the two children outside to safety.  He froze on the last step, as a panicked, “Dean!” escaped his lips.  His heart was pounding wildly as he ran to the corner where Dean lay unconscious.

Sam held his brother in his arms, trying to feel for a pulse, almost not believing when it did happen faintly against his fingers.

He picked him up and carried him to the car, getting him and the children to the nearest hospital.  He focused on giving all the information he could to the police, his mind racing, desperate to hear anything from the doctors about his brother.

But when the doctor finally came, he couldn’t accept what he was told.  The electrocution Dean had suffered, in the process of killing the monster, had triggered a heart attack.  One so massive, that the doctor only gave Dean a few weeks at most to live.

Sam stuttered in disbelief.  There had to be something they could do. Sam couldn’t take listening to the doctor’s denials about hope one second more, so he all but ran to find the room they had Dean resting in.

When he entered, Dean looked even worse than he had back in the basement.  His skin was pale, almost grey in color.  Dark pink discoloration and spotting had formed all around Dean’s beautiful eyes, and when he spoke, his pace of talking was far slower than Sam was used to.  But he was alive.  Sam tried to hold on to that.

When Sam indicated that he needed to talk to Dean about what the doctor said, it became clear that Dean had already accepted the doctor’s prognosis.  He said “Looks like you’re gonna leave town without me.”

The way he looked at Sam was matter of fact. The tone in his voice was as if he were discussing any other plan they had ever had about their next move.

Sam felt like throwing up.  His voice was rough and breathy when he answered in confusion, “What are you talking about?  I’m not gonna leave you here.”

Dean compounded his stance by saying “You better take care of that car, I swear I’ll haunt your ass.

Sam tried his best not to cry.  He felt so lost.  Seeing Dean lying helplessly in that bed, tied to multiple pieces of machinery was bad enough, but thinking about him not being here at all, not being with Sam, for the rest of their lives, leaving him alone, Sam couldn’t take it.

He stood silently staring out the window, trying to process what to say or how to feel.  Succeeding only in managing to feel helpless.

Dean had been his rock, his constant, the one person he had always known he could count on to be there, no matter what.  The thought of that no longer being true, he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. 

Sam tried to convince Dean not to give up, that they had options.  Dean refused to hear any of it, saying at last, as he looked deeply into Sam’s eyes, “I’m gonna die.”

A small sad grin pulled at the side of his mouth as he added resolutely, “And you can’t stop it.”

The boys stared at each other for a moment, multitudes of things needing to be said.  Sam swallowed before lifting his chin in defiance, saying only “Watch me.”

Later, Sam sat on his bed alone, in the motel room that they should be sharing.  He was surrounded by printouts and notes of all the things he had been muddling through, desperately trying to find a solution to save his brother.  He gave in, and called his Dad. Never in his life had he needed that man the way he needed him now, but knowing in his gut John wouldn’t come through, not even for Dean, his perfect soldier.

He still had to try though. So Sam fought back tears, trying to rein in the anger and resentment he felt for his dad, telling John’s voice message that he shouldn’t worry about Dean, because Sam would do whatever it took to save him.

Sam sat chewing on his nails, and his deeper emotions.  His anxiety was churning up his stomach. A knock on the door jerked him from his sad reverie.

He opened the door cautiously, and his mouth gaped open in surprise.  His brother, looking like walking death, stood leaning against the frame.

Dean told him he checked himself out. Saying that he wasn’t going to allow himself to die in a hospital where the nurses weren’t even hot.

The truth Dean could never tell Sam, was that he couldn’t bear to be away from his brother one more minute.  He had mere days left, and he would be damned if he wasn’t going to spend every waking moment with Sam that he could before his time came.  He had missed so much of the last few years with Sam, he wasn’t going to miss one more minute.

Sam called Dean out, on his bullshit attitude, of laughing in the face of death.  Said he could see right through it, but Dean blew it off with a “Whatever, dude.”

Dean’s being here, in this room with Sam, even his cavalier attitude, made Sam want to laugh with relief.  It was like seeing Dean here, was a sign that they really did need to go for one of the out of the box solutions he had been mulling over in his head.

Dean groused at Sam, saying “You’re not gonna let me die in peace, are you?”

But in truth, Dean didn’t care where Sam took him, or how they spent his last few days, as long as he could spend the time with Sam.

He did feel bad for Sam.  He hated the idea of his kid brother getting false hope.  Dean hated the thought of leaving Sam behind.  It went against everything he had lived for.  His whole raison d’être was _taking care of Sammy,_ dying first didn’t really fit into that scenario. But Dean would gladly take it, in the place of the opposite alternative.

His attitude changed however when Sam pulled up in front of a tent that was clearly not where a doctor worked.  Dean had thought Sam was taking him to a specialist doctor, not to some quack miracle worker.  He immediately became frustrated with his little brother for buying into this kind of nonsense.

Dean complained and said he didn’t understand why Sam would have faith in anyone like this.  Sam couldn’t understand, with everything they had seen, all the impossible horrible things out there, why Dean couldn’t have enough faith to even give this guy a try.

While they were arguing, a beautiful young woman, Layla, overheard and gave her two cents saying, “Maybe God works in mysterious ways.”

Sam couldn’t believe that Dean found a hot girl to flirt with, even in the gray skies around the healer’s tent.  Normally Sam would resent her, and be jealous, but if she convinced Dean to let this guy heal him, Sam would even rent a room for the two of them for the night.  He would swallow his jealousy down and listen to the gory details in the morning, with a smile on his face, if it meant Dean would allow himself to be healed.

Sam tried to get Dean to lean on him, tried to support him with an arm around him, as he made Dean take a seat up front.  Dean pushed Sam’s arms away complaining he could do it himself, but in reality all Dean wanted to do was snuggle in against Sam and let him hold him.  He wanted Sam to hold him and comfort him and just spend all the time they had before his death snuggled together, in a bed somewhere. But he had to fight those feelings off. He could never let Sam see how much he needed him, wanted him, with every breath he could manage.

It turned out the Reverend they were there to see, Roy LeGrange, was blind.  He began to preach, and Dean couldn’t help himself, when under his breath, he skeptically accused the guy of going after people’s wallets. To Dean’s surprise the guy heard him, and told Dean to come up to the podium to be healed.  Dean refused, saying he should pick someone else.  The guy told him that he hadn’t picked Dean, the Lord had. 

That didn’t sit right with Dean.  Dean had never believed in God, wasn’t sure what he believed, but had never had faith in anything except what he could see and kill.  But this guy was adamant, and Sam pushed hard for Dean to go up and at least let him try to heal him.  It was Sam’s happy smile, his hope writ large across his beautiful face, that Dean didn’t know how many more times he would get to see, that made him step up and stand next to the Reverend.

Sam prayed, prayed as hard as he could ever remember praying for anything, while he watched the blind man lay his hand on Dean’s temple.  He hoped with all his might that this would save his brother, but as Dean fell to his knees, Sam became distressed.  He wasn’t sure what was happening, or if Dean was okay.

When Dean fell prone, onto his back, Sam rushed the stage.  He grabbed his brother’s coat and shook him, until Dean gasped for breath and his eyes flew open.

Dean’s eyes grew wide as he saw an old man standing next to the Reverend who then turned and disappeared.

Sam’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding, he was beginning to feel he was the one having the heart issues, as he drove Dean to the nearest hospital the next day, to get checked out.  Sam was overjoyed by the results the doctor announced, saying there was nothing wrong with Dean’s heart.  Dean’s color had returned to normal, and he had consistently said he felt fine, but his face was troubled and unhappy.

Dean’s eyes got back some of their brightness and curiosity though, when the doctor mentioned that just yesterday, a man of 27 in perfect health died of a heart attack.  Dean immediately knew it had to be related.

Sam tried to talk him out of discounting what happened.  He tried to get Dean to just leave it alone.  Sam didn’t want to take any chances that this might in any way come undone.  He needed Dean to be here, needed him more than he needed his next breath.  He just wanted to take the win and move on.

But Dean being Dean, never feeling like he deserved anything good, had to dig deeper.  Insisted they both needed to.  He explained to Sam that he knew there was something off when he was being healed.  That it felt wrong somehow.  And then he described the older man he had seen, saying he thought it was a spirit.  Sam balked, saying that he would have surely seen it if there had been a spirit there, since he had been sensing an awful lof of things lately.

Dean told Sam he had to have faith in his instincts about this, asking him to check out the other young man’s death from yesterday so that Dean could go back and talk to the Reverend. Sam was unhappy about it, but he was so thrilled that Dean had been cured, that he was here and wasn’t going anywhere, Sam had to do what he asked.

Sam’s happy mood didn’t last long when he found out that the man who died yesterday, did so at the exact same moment as Dean was healed.  The more Sam did research into the other people that had been healed by the Reverend, the more his blood ran cold.  He didn’t know what Dean would do when he found out his instincts were right.  He couldn’t let Dean do anything rash, not anything that would put his life on the line again. 

As Dean walked in, already looking dejected, Sam felt nauseous about having to give him the bad news.

Dean reacted just as badly as Sam feared.  Dean’s tone was miserable as he claimed that the guy yesterday died because of him.  That Sam should have never brought him here.

Sam’s heart couldn’t take this.  Sam’s voice was just barely a whisper as he told Dean, “I didn’t know.”

He hoped that Dean’s anger would subside and that he wouldn’t hold this against Sam.  He would never tell Dean this, but he didn’t care that someone else had died.  He would be willing for ten people, a hundred people, to die to keep Dean alive.  He knew it made him a horrible person, but he was in love with his own brother, how much more taint could it possibly add to his soul?

As Dean took it all in, he realized what they were dealing with.  He had known it all along, but just didn’t want it to be real.  He told Sam, that the only thing this could be, what the old man he saw must be, is a reaper.

They worked together to try to figure out how the Reverend could be controlling a reaper.  It wasn’t until they went back to the tent and Reverend’s home that it all came together.  It turned out that it wasn’t the Reverend who was controlling the reaper.  It was his wife, Sue Ann.  She not only had used black magic to save her husband when he was dying, she had harnessed the reaper, with a cross talisman, to make it kill people she felt were immoral. 

Dean and Sam stopped her from killing a protester, but Dean felt horrible that he had to do it. It was at that moment that the Reverend had chosen to heal Layla, the nice lady who was dying of a brain tumor. 

As much as Dean hated to not save her, he couldn’t in good conscious allow the Reverend’s wife to pick and choose who lived and died just on a whim.  But before he could stop her completely, he was thrown out of the tent by the local police in attendance. 

The boys discussed a strategy and went back to the tent that night because they’d overheard the Reverend saying that he would heal Layla in a closed service.  They had to split up, Dean leading the local police on a wild goose chase, while Sam went to find the dark magic altar and Sue Ann, to stop what she was doing.

He found the altar and saw that she was planning to have Dean lose his life in order to save Layla.  Sam couldn’t let that happen.  He destroyed the altar, but Sue Ann locked him in the basement saying “Sam, your brother is wicked, and he deserves to die.”

Sam became enraged, trying desperately to break out before she could steal Dean’s life again.  He broke the weak part of a wall, where the dryer vent was, and climbed his way free. 

Dean saw the reaper coming for him.  He could feel the life being drained out of him as it put its hand on his head.

A part of him thought he shouldn’t fight, should let Layla have the healing, since she deserved to live more than he did.  But then he thought about Sam, about how hurt and angry he would be at Dean giving up.  About how much Dean wanted to live to be with Sam again, and he didn’t want to give up.

In the instant before Dean felt the final bit of his life drain away, Sam jerked the talisman from around Sue Ann’s neck smashing it on the ground.  Dean drew in a breath, coughed, and then drew in another. 

Sam watched as the reaper came for Sue Ann.  Watched as it killed her, before walking away to find Dean.  Sue Ann had been killed, but Layla didn’t get the benefit of her death, because the connection had been severed before her healing could be complete.

Dean was grateful to be alive, to watch Sam walk towards him in the rain as they both got to the car.  But he felt guilty.  Felt awful that a woman as kind as Layla wouldn’t get the same miracle he had been granted.

His guilt continued to plague him back at the motel as they packed. 

Sam hated to watch his brother beat himself up.  He didn’t want to do it, but he knew his brother needed closure with Layla.  He called her and arranged for her to come there so that she and Dean could talk or whatever it was they needed to do.

When she got to the motel, Dean was shocked to see her. 

Sam smiled at him, saying, “I’m gonna grab a soda.”  

He felt sick the entire walk down the hallway to the machines.  He had no idea what they would do or say while he was gone.  He planned to give them plenty of time for whatever it was.  He hated that Dean was attracted to her, as he had been to so many young women throughout the years.  But Sam would stomach it, would continue to do so for as long as he was with Dean, because he would do whatever it took to stay by his brother’s side.

He was just thankful that Dean was alive, even if that meant Dean wanted to have sex with someone different in every town they hit, Sam would take it, and be thankful for it, because it meant his blood was still pumping warm and alive through his veins.

Did he wish Dean looked at him the way he looked at Layla?  Yes, of course.  But the way he did look at Sam was enough.  Being happy to be by Sam’s side, to be doing the work they would do together, that was enough for Sam.

Dean was very uncomfortable.  He felt so guilty for being alive when he knew the woman in front of him wouldn’t be in a few months.  And that was his fault.  He stopped her life from being saved.  Sam had said they had made the right call, but it sure didn’t feel that way to Dean.  They were in the business of saving lives, not ending them.

But Layla seemed content.  Her faith sustained her.  And Dean allowed her peace to wash over him and take some of his guilt away with her quiet words and declaration that his deciding to pray for her was a miracle enough.

Once she left, he waited for Sam to come back, wondering what to do about his little brother.  He was so glad to be alive and with Sam.  Glad he hadn’t had to abandon his brother to make his way in the world alone.  But a part of him wondered if Sam wouldn’t have been better off, if they hadn’t ever gone on this case.  If nature had taken its course, Sam would be free of his brother’s influence.  Free to go back to Stanford and pick up that path for his life again.

Sam had seemed to be happy to be back on the job again with Dean, since he had come back to rescue Dean from the scarecrow.  But how much of that was just worry for his brother?  If Dean wasn’t around, would Sam go back to his old life?

He deserved a normal life.  But on their last few hunts since his coming back, Sam had seemed happier than Dean remembered seeing him.  So maybe he wanted to be here, really did want to be with Dean on the road the way Dean wanted to be with Sam.  Well not THE way Dean wanted to be with Sam, but at least being here with him, hunting, traveling together.

 _Could it really be enough for Sam?_ Dean wasn’t sure, but now that he had a second chance at life, he was going to do everything he could to make his life mean something, with Sam.  He was going to cherish every moment they had together, in case Sam ever did decide that this wasn’t enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Work has suddenly gotten much busier, which is great for my ability to eat, but not so good for making time to write. I am still going to try to do at least one episode a day, and maybe more over the weekend but if not, I hope it won't try your patience too much.
> 
> Thank you so much for the kudos and comments. They make the emotional strain the boys put me through all worth it!!


End file.
